With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemas

So surprising. Do business with shitbags, and they squeal. I must say, I am enjoying this, and having been told the biggest of the big read ET, I'll finally be able to give the Hedge Kings some advice. Check your Rolodex. Judas in there about ten times over.

For more than a year, Mr. Slaine, a senior Wall Street trader, was a government mole who wore a wire strapped to his torso, helping prosecutors to build the biggest insider-trading case in two decades.

Using extensive contacts developed over a 27-year Wall Street career, Mr. Slaine has provided leads on possible insider trading by others not yet implicated in a sprawling case involving hedge fund Galleon Group, people familiar with the matter say. That case has rocked Wall Street and Silicon Valley and raised questions about the integrity of the nationâs financial markets. Mr. Slaineâs identity as an informant is being revealed by The Wall Street Journal for the first time.

In a brief telephone interview Thursday night, Mr. Slaine said: âYou got the wrong guy.â He said he has ânothing to do with that case.â He declined to provide a lawyerâs name.

A criminal complaint filed in a New York federal court in November describes in detail the involvement of a cooperating source dubbed âCS-1.â The Wall Street Journal has confirmed that Mr. Slaine is that cooperating source. This story of his involvement in the case was pieced together from information contained in the complaint and from interviews with Wall Street traders, lawyers and government officials involved the case.

Mr. Slaineâs saga demonstrates how the U.S. has used Wall Street players to go undercover and turn on their colleagues. Mr. Slaine, 50 years old, has told prosecutors, among other things, that his friend and weight-lifting partner, Craig Drimal, traded on inside information. In November, Mr. Drimal was arrested at his Weston, Conn., home. Mr. Drimal declined to comment.